情商3：影响你一生的工作情商（第2版）

1995年5月，我给《纽约时报》写了一篇文章，那篇文章引起了伯特·斯维尔塞（Burt Swersey）的注意，由此引发了他的灵感。那篇文章是关于贝尔实验室的研究报告，文章提到了该实验室某个工程部的优秀员工把其成功更多地归因于情商而非技术。结果，这激发了斯维尔塞与他的学生一起在伦斯勒理工学院进行某些新的尝试。

在给他的学生上课时，斯维尔塞讲述了有关贝尔实验室的研究。他归纳了“成功的5个简单秘诀”，即建立友好关系、同理心、说服、寻求合作、赢得舆论支持。在上课第一天，他不是复习工程学的基础知识，而是宣布他们将尝试学习成功的5个秘诀。

斯维尔塞问学生们：“你们一般怎样与陌生人建立友好关系？”起初，学生们颇为困惑，迟疑不决。随后，学生们提出了一些方法。斯维尔塞把这些方法都写到黑板上，他们的方法是：“主动自我介绍，谈话时与对方有目光接触，询问对方的个人信息，与对方握手，把自己的情况告诉对方，认真倾听对方讲话……”斯维尔塞告诉学生们：“这些建议听起来都不错。现在，找一个你不认识的人，用三分钟时间和他熟悉一下。”

学生们一下子热情高涨，教室里充满了欢声笑语，斯维尔塞费了好大劲才让大家安静下来。然后，大家把注意力放在第二个秘诀上，即怎样运用同理心，设身处地为他人着想。

他一边问学生同理心是什么意思，一边把“关心他人、倾听对方意见、支持鼓励他人……”写在黑板上。一个头戴棒球帽，帽檐朝后，脚翘在课桌上的小伙子嘟囔道：“你要举个例子才好啊……”斯维尔塞说：“这可说到点子上了。现在，我要你们想想自己生活中可能遇到的、觉得需要得到他人支持的情况，并把它告诉你的同伴。作为同伴，任务就是运用同理心，设身处地为对方着想。”教室里再次热闹起来，这项学习进展顺利。

斯维尔塞进一步说：“如果谈论的某件事会直接对同伴产生消极影响，作为同伴，无论这件事有多么难以接受，都不能与对方发生矛盾冲突，而是要站在对方的立场，替他想想。”角色扮演开始了，学生们想方设法地编造出一些令人反感、难以接受的事情，例如“我把你的车涂得一塌糊涂”、“我弄死了你的金鱼”、“我与你的女朋友上床”。

对进行同理心训练的学生，斯维尔塞不仅坚持要他们“忍气吞声”，还要求他们将自己换到对方的处境来考虑，说出像“我真为你的事感到难过，你一定很难受”之类的话。接着，全班学生再讨论更现实的问题：

项目团队某个成员未能如期完成负责的那部分工作，团队里其他人应采取什么态度。通过讨论，学生们逐渐懂得给予支持、鼓励比愤怒更重要。

学生们继续练习怎样进行说服和赢得舆论支持的方法，练习用三分钟时间做出小组决定，指出哪种冰激凌是世界上最好吃的并说出理由。（有一个小组意见统一，结论是三色冰激凌最美味，因为它具有三种美味冰激凌的味道。）

这个小型社交能力练习试验结果如何？

斯维尔塞说：“后来我发现，我讲授的工程设计入门课程中，学得最好的班就是训练过社交能力的这个班。他们不仅比我所教过的其他学生学得更好，而且做出了好几个不错的创意设计。我认为，他们成功的一个重要原因就是练习过那5个诀窍。”

斯维尔塞的实验虽然简单，但是反映了组织目前存在的严重问题，有些公司员工主要是技术人员，在这样的公司中人们常常缺乏良好的社交能力。曾在麻省理工学院任教的丹尼尔·金对我说：“在有些公司，怎样管理好技术人员的问题是难以回避的。我在这些公司工作时，发现团队建设中遇到的一个主要问题就是，大家都是同事，可是技术人员竟然认为别人的技术与自己的毫不相关。现在，这些公司正在醒悟、逐渐认识到情感能力缺乏的代价。”

哈佛商学院、麻省理工学院斯隆管理学院等专业学院已注意到这种情况。金补充说：“现在，更多的课程是以小组为基本单位进行的，这是根据很多公司的意见反馈做出的调整。因为公司常抱怨，学校培养出来的工商管理硕士，个个都出类拔萃，但他们需要学会怎样在团队中好好工作。”

许多热心倡导团队合作的人都看出，每个团队本身很可能就是学习某些能力的实验室，作为团队成员，人们要想有优异的表现，就必须具备这些情感能力。波士顿大学管理学院工商管理硕士课程项目主管凯茜·卡拉姆说：“团队中每个成员都具有独特的专长或技能，能为团队做出相应贡献。有些专长是技术性的，有些专长则是情感能力或是社交能力。

如果在团队中大家有意互相学习，或者让互相学习成为工作的一部分，这就是大家互相学习的绝好机会了。”

凯茜接着说，人们常常错失良机。“因为很多时候，人们以为留意处理好与团队成员的关系就会分心，会分散完成团队任务的精力，所以很多人不认为这是推动大家工作进步的好方法。其实，把团队作为学习团队合作技能的场所，这一点意义深远，以团队为基本工作单位的公司更应该重视团队中的相互学习。”

下面我们会谈谈其他问题——如果我们知道该从哪里努力，那么我们每个人无论通过团队还是依靠个人，都可以强化并开发所需的情感能力。

1. The 1982 meeting: John Markoff, “The Soul of a New Economy,” New York Times, December 29,1997.
2. John Doerr: interviewed by Michael S. Malone, “John Doerr’s Startup Manual,” Fast Company,February/March 1997.
3. The need for cooperation as a force in shaping the brain in evolution was perhaps first proposed byAlison Jolly in “Lemur Social Behaviour and Primate Intelligence,” Science 153 (1966).
4. The main theorist here is David S. Wilson, “Incorporating Group Selection into the AdaptationistProgram: A Case Study Involving Human Decision-making,” in J. Simpson and D. Kendrick (eds.),Evolutionary Social Psychology (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997). While some evolutionarypsychologists focus on the human ability to deceive others as a source of competitive advantage, theyslight the larger benefits accrued to the survival of a group by the more widespread acts of cooperationand mutual help that are essential to the group’s very survival.
5. The evolutionary advantage of cooperation in human evolution can be glimpsed among chimpanzeebands; Jane Goodall reports those females who have particularly strong cooperative alliances with otherfemales have a higher rate of infant survival, faster maturing daughters, and produce offspring mostrapidly. Anne Pusey, Jennifer Williams, and Jane Goodall, “The Influence of Dominance Rank onReproductive Success of Female Chimpanzees,” Science, August 8, 1997.
6. Cooperation and a radar for selfishness: described in Bruce Bower, “Return of the Group,” ScienceNews, November 18, 1995.
7. The human brain evolved to handle the challenge of group life: The main proponent of this theoryis Denise Cummins, an evolutionary psychologist, and author of Human Reasoning: An EvolutionaryPerspective (Cambridge, MA: Bradford/MIT Press, 1997).
8. Neocortex is larger the bigger the group: T. Sawaguchi and H. Kudo, “Neocortical Developmentand Social Structures in Primates,” Primates 31 (1990).
9. Social pressures drove brain evolution: see Cummins, Human Reasoning.
10. What percent of knowledge is stored in your own mind?: Robert E. Kelley, How to Be a Star atWork (New York: Times Books, 1998).
11. Intellect not in my skin: Howard Gardner, Frames of Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1993).
12. Groups outscore individuals: G. W. Hill, “Group Versus Individual Performance: Are N+1 HeadsBetter Than One?” Psychological Bulletin 91 (1982).
13. Collective memory in teams: Roger Dixon, Interactive Minds (New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1996).
14. Simulated management teams: R. Meredith Belbin, Management Teams: Why They Succeed orFail (London: Halstead Press, 1982); R. Meredith Belbin, Team Roles at Work (London: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1996).
15. The concept of group IQ was first developed in Wendy M. Williams and Robert J. Sternberg,“Group Intelligence: Why Some Groups Are Better Than Others,” Intelligence 12 (1988). They definegroup intelligence as “the functional intelligence of a group of people working as a unit.”
16. The classic study: Williams and Sternberg, “Group Intelligence.”
17. Critical elements for effectiveness: Michael A. Campion et al., “Relations Between Work TeamCharacteristics and Effectiveness: A Replication and Extension,” Personnel Psychology 49 (1996).
18. Jeffrey Katzenberg, as observed by Nathan Myhrvold of Microsoft, and described in Ken Auletta,“The Microsoft Provocateur,” The New Yorker, May 1997.
19. Knowledge workers and networks: Kelley, How to Be a Star at Work.
20. Time saved through good networks: Kelley, How to Be a Star at Work.
21. The power of the alliance between high-tech start-ups and venture capitalists: “VentureCapitalists,” The Economist, January 25, 1997.
22. People on whom performance depends: quoted in John Kotter, Power in Management (New York:AMACOM, 1979).
23. Superior managers effective at building bonds: Richard Boyatzis, The Competent Manager: AModel for Effective Performance (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1982); Robert E. Kaplan, BeyondAmbition: How Driven Managers Can Lead Better and Live Better (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991).
24. Carefully chosen favors: Kelley, How to Be a Star at Work.
25. Marks and Spencer and other retailers are forging bonds of trust with suppliers: Nirmalya Kumar,“The Power of Trust in Manufacturer-Retailer Relationships,” Harvard Business Review,November/December 1996.
26. Kraft Foods: Ken Partch, “Partnering: A Win-Win Proposition … or the Latest Hula Hoop inMarketing?” Supermarket Business, May 1991.
27. Kumar, “The Power of Trust.”
28. The working relationship as a “couple”: James Krantz, “The Managerial Couple: Superior-Subordinate Relationships as a Unit of Analysis,” Human Resource Management, Summer 1989.
29. Projective identification: The best work on this insidious process is the classic by Thomas Ogden,Projective Identification and Psychotherapeutic Technique (New York: Jason Aronson, 1991).
30. Owens Corning and SAP: “Owens Corning: Back from the Dead,” Fortune, May 26, 1997.
31. Self-managed work teams: cited in Lawler et al., Employee Involvement and Total QualityManagement: Practices and Results in Fortune 1,000 Companies (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992).
32. Advantages of self-managed work teams: Richard Moreland et al., “Training People to Work inGroups,” in R. S. Tinsdale (ed.), Applications of Theory and Research on Groups to Social Issues (NewYork: Plenum, 1997).
33. The value of a top team in a polyester fiber plant was 31 million pounds per year, while averageteams produced 24 million pounds per year. The value of the fiber from average teams was $33.6million, that from superior teams $43.4 million. The total salary for a team was just $270,000. Source:Lyle Spencer Jr., presentation at International Family Business Programs Association, Northampton,MA, July 1997.
34. Team achievement profile: Lyle Spencer Jr. et al., Competency Assessment Methods: History andState of the Art (Boston: Hay/McBer, 1997).
35. Jean Brittain Leslie and Ellen Van Velsor, “A Look at Derailment Today: North America andEurope,” Center for Creative Leadership, Greensboro, NC, 1996.
36. Team leadership most frequent competence in managers: Lyle M. Spencer Jr. and Signe M.Spencer, Competence at Work: Models for Superior Performance (New York: John Wiley and Sons,1993).
37. The team studies were presented by Lyle Spencer Jr. and Charles Morrow at the InternationalConference on Competency-based Tools and Applications to Drive Organizational Performance,London, October 1997.
38. There were different ways teams could translate their competencies into team effectiveness; notevery star team excelled in every one. One winning combination, for example, combined the drive toimprove with a strong interpersonal focus, ensuring the team was cohesive and harmonious in workingtogether. Another way to excel combined the drive to improve with an external outlook, emphasizingserving the needs of and building bonds with other parts of the company.
39. Strategic decision making in management teams: Allen C. Amason, “Distinguishing the Effects ofFunctional and Dysfunctional Conflict in Strategic Decision Making: Resolving a Paradox for TopManagement Teams,” Academy of Management Journal 39 (1996).
40. The Data General engineering team: Tracy Kidder, The Soul of a New Machine (Boston: Little,Brown, 1981).
41. The analysis of the Data General team: Lee Bolman and Terrence E. Deal, “What Makes a TeamWork?” Organizational Dynamics, vol. 23, 1992.
42. The pharmaceutical R&D teams: Richard E. Boyatzis et al., “Entrepreneurial Innovation inPharmaceutical Research and Development,” Human Resource Planning 15 (1990).
43. The de facto leader: See Wilson, “Incorporating Group Selection.”
44. Team leaders need to hold back: see, for example, L. E. Anderson and W. K. Balzer, “The Effectsof Timing of Leaders’ Opinions on Problem-solving Groups: A Field Experiment,” Group andOrganizational Studies 16 (1991).
45. Self-managing work teams: Susan G. Cohen et al., “A Predictive Model of Self-managing WorkTeam Effectiveness,” Human Relations 49 (1996).
46. A meta-analysis of studies with hundreds of self-managing teams found that those withoutsupervisors performed better than those that had supervisors: R. I. Beekun, “Assessing theEffectiveness of Sociotechnical Interventions: Antidote or Fad?” Human Relations 47 (1989).
47. The disastrous cross-functional meeting: Daniel R. Denison et al., “From Chimneys to Cross-functional Teams: Developing and Validating a Diagnostic Model,” Academy of Management Journal39 (1996).
48. The signs of group flow are seen in what Warren Bennis calls “Great Groups” in his landmarkstudy of a half dozen remarkable teams. These groups display the hallmarks of people in a collectivestate of flow. That figures; flow is the state exhibited by people who are outdoing themselves, and soemerges with truly outstanding groups. Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman, OrganizingGenius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1997).
49. Feynman quoted in Bennis and Biederman.
50. “I work to win.”: Kidder, The Soul of a New Machine.